The Goodness of God's Groceries: A Warning Against Pious Poison Text: 1 Timothy 4:1-5
Introduction: The Coming Apostasy
The Christian life is a battle, and the field of that battle is the Church. We often think of the primary threats as coming from the outside, from the snarling secularists and the atheistic hordes. And those threats are real enough. But the Apostle Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, repeatedly warns us that the most insidious dangers, the most cancerous threats, arise from within the household of faith. The world can kill our bodies, but false teachers can shipwreck our faith. The world can persecute the church, but apostates can poison it from the inside out.
Here in his letter to his young apprentice Timothy, who is pastoring the church in Ephesus, Paul issues a stark and specific warning. He is not speaking in generalities. He says the Spirit "explicitly" says this. This is not a vague premonition; it is a direct revelation about the nature of spiritual warfare in the New Covenant era. This is what the fight is going to look like. And the fight is not going to be against honest pagans who simply disbelieve. It will be against men who once stood in the ranks, who knew the vocabulary of faith, but who fell away, becoming mouthpieces for Hell.
This falling away is not a simple intellectual error. It is a moral and spiritual rebellion that masquerades as a higher form of piety. This is the great trick of the devil. He rarely comes to us with horns and a pitchfork, asking us to engage in obvious debauchery. No, his most effective tactic is to come as an angel of light, promoting a form of "super-spirituality" that is actually a direct assault on the goodness of God the Creator. He tempts us to become more spiritual than God, which is another way of saying he tempts us to become idolaters, worshipping a god of our own gnostic imaginations rather than the God who revealed Himself in Scripture and in the created order.
So, Paul is equipping Timothy, and by extension all faithful pastors, to identify and refute a particular kind of lie. It is a lie that sounds holy but is demonic. It is a lie that promotes asceticism but is rooted in hypocrisy. It is a lie that denies God's good gifts in the name of God. This is a lie that has reappeared in countless forms throughout church history, from the Gnostics of the second century to the medieval monastics who went to seed, to the joyless legalists of our own day. And the biblical response is not to meet them halfway, but to reassert, with joyful thanksgiving, the glorious goodness of our Creator God.
The Text
But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by the hypocrisy of liars, who have been seared in their own conscience, who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God created to be shared in with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
(1 Timothy 4:1-5 LSB)
Demonic Doctrines and Dead Consciences (v. 1-2)
We begin with the source and nature of the coming corruption.
"But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by the hypocrisy of liars, who have been seared in their own conscience..." (1 Timothy 4:1-2)
The warning is direct from the Holy Spirit. The "later times" refers to the entire period between Christ's first and second comings. This is not some far-off prophecy for the 21st century alone; this has been the state of play since the beginning. The church is always just one generation away from apostasy. "Some will fall away from the faith." The word is apostasontai, from which we get apostasy. This is not speaking of people who were never really attached. This refers to those within the visible covenant community. They were branches on the vine, but not fruit-bearing branches, and so they are cut off (John 15). They were part of the assembly, they heard the Word, they partook of the sacraments, but they did not have true, saving faith. And their departure is not a quiet drift; it is an active turning toward something else.
What do they turn to? "Deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons." Let us be very clear. Bad theology is not just a mistake, like a math error on a chalkboard. All heresy has a spiritual, demonic source. Paul is not being hyperbolic. These false teachers are not simply misguided; they are mouthpieces. They are trafficking in demonic propaganda. Demons are not just tempting people to sin in the gutter; they are actively authoring theological systems designed to lead the church astray. And these doctrines are always characterized by deceit. They are lies dressed up in the language of Zion.
The delivery system for this poison is "the hypocrisy of liars." The teachers of these demonic doctrines are not sincere but mistaken. They are hypocrites. They are playing a role. They present an outward face of extreme piety and self-denial while their inner life is a wasteland. And the reason they can maintain this charade is that their conscience has been "seared." The image is of a cauterizing iron. A seared conscience is one that has been burned over, leaving scar tissue that has no feeling. By repeatedly ignoring the truth, by continually suppressing what they know to be right, they have deadened their moral nerve endings. They can no longer feel the guilt that God designed the conscience to produce. They are insulated from their own sin, which makes them terrifyingly effective agents of the devil.
The Symptoms of Super-Spirituality (v. 3)
Paul then gives us two concrete examples of what these demonic doctrines look like in practice.
"...who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God created to be shared in with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth." (1 Timothy 4:3 LSB)
Here are the tell-tale signs of this gnostic piety. First, they forbid marriage. Marriage, the first institution God created, the bedrock of society, the living picture of Christ and the Church, is presented as something unspiritual. Celibacy is held up as the superior state, not as a gift for some, but as a requirement for the truly holy. This is a direct assault on the creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply. It is a slander against the goodness of the body, of sexuality, and of the family. It treats the material world as a trap to be escaped rather than a theater of God's glory to be enjoyed.
Second, they advocate abstaining from certain foods. This is not about kosher laws, which were fulfilled in Christ. This is a new, man-made legalism that declares certain created things "unclean" or "unspiritual." Again, the root is Gnosticism, the ancient heresy that spirit is good and matter is evil. To these false teachers, true holiness requires a detachment from the physical world. This is a profound insult to the Creator. God made cows and chickens and broccoli. He declared them good. And these pious frauds come along and say, "No, God, you were mistaken. To be truly close to you, we must reject what you have made."
Notice the target audience for God's good gifts. They were created to be shared in "with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth." This is key. The created world is for believers. Unbelievers are squatters in God's world; they eat God's food and breathe God's air without acknowledging the landlord. But for those who "believe and know the truth," the simple act of eating a meal becomes an act of worship. We know who made the food, and we know why He made it, for our enjoyment and His glory. This knowledge transforms everything.
The Great Thanksgiving Affirmation (v. 4-5)
Paul concludes with a thunderous declaration of God's goodness, which serves as the antidote to this whole brand of pious poison.
"For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer." (1 Timothy 4:4-5 LSB)
This is one of the foundational principles of a Christian worldview. "Everything created by God is good." This is the death blow to all forms of dualism. Matter is not evil. The body is not a prison for the soul. Food is not unspiritual. Marriage is not a concession to our baser instincts. All of it, from galaxies to garden snails, from marriage beds to bacon, is declared "good" by its Maker. There is no corner of creation that is inherently sinful. Sin is a moral corruption that entered the world; it is not a metaphysical property of the world itself.
Because creation is good, "nothing is to be rejected." This is a charter of Christian liberty. We are not to be bound by the arbitrary food laws of demon-inspired hypocrites. If God made it, we are free to enjoy it. But this liberty is not licentiousness. There is a crucial condition: "if it is received with thanksgiving." Thanksgiving is the essential ingredient. Thanksgiving is what distinguishes a believer's enjoyment of the world from a pagan's indulgence. Thanksgiving acknowledges the Giver. It recognizes that the steak on my plate is not a brute fact of the cosmos but a gracious provision from my Heavenly Father. It turns consumption into communion.
How does this happen? The gift is "sanctified by the word of God and prayer." To sanctify something means to set it apart for a holy use. This is not a magic spell we mutter over our food. The "word of God" is what tells us what a thing is and what it is for. The Word tells us that God created marriage for procreation, companionship, and pleasure. The Word tells us God created food to sustain our lives and to be enjoyed. The Word defines the gift and its proper use. "Prayer" is our response of thanksgiving. When we understand what the Word says about a gift, and we respond with a grateful heart in prayer, that gift is set apart for its intended, God-glorifying purpose. A hamburger is just a hamburger. But a hamburger received with thanksgiving, according to the Word of God, becomes a means of grace, a token of God's fatherly kindness.
Conclusion: Eat Your Bacon to the Glory of God
The implications of this passage are immense. The primary battle against these demonic doctrines is not fought by adopting an opposing asceticism, but by a robust, joyful, and thankful embrace of God's good creation. The answer to the legalist who forbids marriage is not to denigrate marriage but to build strong, faithful, and fruitful Christian households. The answer to the man who forbids bacon is to fry it up, thank God for it, and eat it to His glory.
This is because true spirituality is not about escaping the created world, but about receiving it rightly. It is about seeing the entire world as a gift from a good Father. The Gnostic wants to empty the world of its meaning and joy in order to find God in some ethereal, spiritual realm. The Christian finds God precisely through the gifts He has given us. We taste His goodness in our food. We see His faithfulness in the covenant of marriage. We see His glory in a sunset.
Therefore, let us be on guard against any teaching, no matter how pious it sounds, that puts a wedge between us and the good things God has made. Any doctrine that makes you feel guilty for enjoying your wife, or for savoring a good meal, is not from the Holy Spirit. It is a doctrine of demons, peddled by hypocrites with dead consciences.
Our response is to be a people marked by gratitude. We are those who "believe and know the truth." And the truth is that our God is a God of lavish goodness. He did not just give us what we need; He gave us a world overflowing with beauty, pleasure, and goodness to be enjoyed. So let us receive it all with thanksgiving. Let us sanctify our lives, our marriages, our homes, and our dinner tables with the Word of God and prayer. In doing so, we not only enjoy the gifts, but we also wage war against the joyless lies of the enemy and bring glory to our great and generous Creator.